Litterfall in the Semideciduous Seasonal Forest in Southern Brazil

Abstract

Litterfall and nutrient cycling are essential processes for the forest diversity and productivity maintenance. This study aims to characterize the litterfall and evaluate if it has correlations with climatic variables in the Semideciduous Seasonal Forest on advanced succession stage, in Southern Brazil. During the 2007-2010 period, the litterfall was collected every month, sorted into leaves, twigs, and miscellaneous fractions. The litterfall amount average was 7.75 Mg ha-1 year-1 and leaves constituted the highest litterfall percentage (75.0%), followed by twigs (14.7%), and miscellaneous (10.3%). Higher leaf amounts were recorded in August and September. The minimum air temperature was negatively correlated with the leaves and twigs production, that is, the litterfall amount increases when the air temperature decreases. The litterfall amount corresponds to values expected to advanced successional stage of the forest typology studied. In Semideciduous Seasonal Forest in Southern Brazil, the thermal stress exerts influence on the litterfall amount.

Contribution of Pseudobombax aff. petropolitanum to Nutrient Cycling in Woody Vegetation from a Neotropical Inselberg

“…The inselberg is surrounded by fragments of Dense Ombrophilous Forest and Seasonal Semideciduous Forest. However, the maximum litterfall in response to low precipitation approached what is commonly found in Seasonal Semideciduous Forest areas, as a mechanism for decreasing evapotranspiration with leaf fall, the main component of litterfall, in periods of lower precipitation and soil water availability (Carvalho et al, 2019;Dick & Schumacher, 2020;Câmara et al, 2021;Lagemann et al, 2022). This pattern is also verified in Deciduous Forest (Schumacher et al, 2018;Araújo et al, 2020), in contrast to evergreen forests where maximum litterfall is usually observed in the wet season (Sousa-Neto et al, 2017;Camara et al, 2018aCamara et al, , 2018b.…”

“…The continuous fine litterfall throughout the year in the inselberg woody vegetation, although seasonality is observed in this process, is a phenomenon commonly observed in the Atlantic Forest biome, regardless of phytophysiognomy, successional stage, altitude, and distance from the edge towards the interior of plant community (Martinelli et al, 2017;Sousa-Neto et al, 2017;Camara et al, 2018aCamara et al, , 2018bMachado et al, 2018;Schumacher et al, 2018;Carvalho et al, 2019;Araújo et al, 2020;Dick & Schumacher, 2020;Menezes et al, 2020;Câmara et al, 2021;Lagemann et al, 2022). The maximum monthly litterfall in inselberg (PP, OS, total litterfall) verified in March 2012 (end of the rainy season and beginning of the dry season) was probable a function of low accumulated precipitation, which was only 74.40 mm (approximately 7.2 % of annual precipitation).…”

“…Nutrient cycling is an important soil entry route for nutrients derived from senescent plant material, and studies have focused on litterfall and its nutrient concentration in forest ecosystems, such as Ombrophilous Forest (Bianchin et al, 2017;Camara et al, 2018a;2018b), Semideciduous Forest (Scheer et al, 2011;Machado et al, 2018;Carvalho et al, 2019;Dick & Schumacher, 2020;Menezes et al, 2020;Câmara et al, 2021;Lagemann et al, 2022), and Deciduous Forest (Schumacher et al, 2018;Araújo et al, 2020). Regardless of the forest typology being subject to greater or lesser seasonality, climate conditions influence nutrient cycling (Scheer et al, 2011;Bianchin et al, 2017;Dick & Schumacher, 2020).…”